July 27, 2006
US Muslim Groups Ask FBI to be Sensitive in Hezbollah Probe
by Nahal Toosi
Associated Press
Leaders of the country's Muslim, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities are urging the FBI to act in a sensitive manner toward people and groups it may encounter when scrutinizing potential activities by the Islamic militant group Hezbollah on U.S. soil.
In a letter sent Wednesday, 25 groups, including the Islamic Society of North America and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, urged FBI Director Robert Mueller to issue instructions to field offices and agents to avoid unwarranted profiling and respect the legal protections of people they may question.
"We want the FBI, obviously, to protect our nation from those who do us harm, but we want them to focus on actual credible evidence of wrongdoing and not target people based on their ethnicity or religion or based on First Amendment political expression," said Farhana Khera, head of Muslim Advocates, the lead drafter of the letter. "We want to avert any kind of raw fishing expedition-type initiative."
Khera, whose group is the charitable arm of the 500-plus-member National Association of Muslim Lawyers, said activists decided to send the letter after learning in recent days that the FBI has increased its focus on the worldwide activities of Hezbollah in light of the most recent fighting in the Middle East. Israel has launched airstrikes and sent soldiers to southern Lebanon in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killings of eight more by the militant group.
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